A newly published paper in Nature Physics reporting breakthrough results from experimental work on C-2U targeting the key goals of achieving and maintaining fusion temperatures and alpha particle ash removal. Stable plasma was already achieved, but temperature was not. This is the science milestone that TAE needed to make their approach successful. Norman, as I understand it is extending these results to prove scaling.

I wonder if Polywell can use the neutral beam results that TAE has pioneered, after all, plasma heating is also the missing key to make Polywell's approach successful as EMC2, too, has shown containment with proof of Grad's postulate on cusps?

That was really an interesting read, if with the scaling they can confirm the fusion improvement rate of20/30 times as well as the possibility to use it to extract Alphas this could become an essential tool for everyone making fusion research.

SJ
I would not say finished, but enough information that Copernicus engineering and plans have been initiated.

BTW, thank you for the links, looks like Helion and TAE are a go, General Fusion should be a go, but I had thought that PI3 was finished. Looks like they are still testing, which might explain why demo has not been green lighted (I had blamed that delay on the mini-me compression design testing).

I am somewhat disappointed that Copernicus will only demonstrate 10 keV ion temperatures. 116 million degrees does not seem all that much. Tokamak Energy is going to do about the same with their current prototype and Helion presumably reached 8 keV with their last prototype (at least that was the goal for "Venti" during the ARPA-E Alpha program). From what I know about Helion's approach, they should at least be aiming for at least 35 keV with their current prototype in order to achieve Q>1.

Cost. It does what they need it to do, it gives them engineering data. $200 million is nothing to sneeze at for Zero megawatts. They would not spend it unless the cat was in the bag based on Norman. Norman showed they can scale Temperature, control the plasma, achieve lifetime.

Of course if you have the money I am sure they would build you a bigger one.

Its next device, dubbed Copernicus, is designed to demonstrate an energy gain. It will involve deuterium-tritium fusion, the aim of most competitors, but a milestone on TAE's path to a hotter, but safer, hydrogen-boron reaction.

Binderbauer expects to pass the D-T fusion milestone soon.

"What we're really going to see in the next couple years is actually the ability to actually make net energy, and that's going to happen in the machine we call Copernicus," he said in a "fireside chat" at UC Irvine.

Clarification: The headline on this story originally began, "Energy From Fusion In Two Years." Two days after the story was published, Binderbauer backed away from that statement through a spokesperson, who said, "While Michl said a 'couple years,' he meant a small number of years. Not literally two."

TAE Technology has been granted also for 2019 computer time through the INCITE (Innovative and Novel Computational Impact on Theory and Experiment) programme:

The Department of Energy (DOE) has fueled TAE Technologies' quest in with awards of computer time through the INCITE (Innovative and Novel Computational Impact on Theory and Experiment) program. This year, the company has 750,000 node-hours on Argonne National Laboratory's Theta supercomputer. That followed a 2018 INCITE award of 500,000 node-hours on Theta, housed at the Argonne Leadership Computing Facility, a DOE Office of Science user facility. Theta helps TAE sift the physical models underlying codes that simulate the vastly different temporal and spatial scales inherent to plasma physics.

So my take away is that C2-W is performing OK, but they want to upgrade it one more time before we can see the anticipated results for this machine. They are sure are not moving as quickly as they (and we) originally hoped they would.

In C-2W, record breaking, advanced beam-driven FRC plasmas dominated by fast particles (total Te+Ti up to 3 keV, based on a pressure balance) are produced and sustained in steady state (up to 30 ms, limited by the energy storage).

In other words, it looks like they were able to almost triple confinement to 30 ms and are now at 3keV temperatures. That is where things are starting to get interesting. Now, I am left to wonder about the density component of the triple product. I believe they already had that one down (but someone correct me if they did not).

Latest results from Norman:
30 ms steady state plasma, 400 eV electron temperature.
From what I understand they have a density of 5x10^12 to 5x10^14 cm^-3.
That is OKish, but not Earth shattering. I was honestly expecting a bit more, especially temperature wise, but maybe they will push it further.https://tae.com/research-library/